An Unacceptable Mate

Chapter Twelve

When Acera moved me into a sparkling white kitchen with light brown cabinets, a fascinated pair of eyes darted to my face. I tried not to look in his direction, or note that he had yet another tall glass of blood in his grasp.

    "Afternoon, Dremos," Acera greeted in his deep voice, his cool hand on the small of my back.

  "Afternoon, Acera, Charlie." He sounded amused when he said my name. I gave him a sideways glance, finding the smallest of smirks on his light pink lips, twinkling in deep brown eyes.

    "You can sit. I'll cook," my mate urged softly whilst reaching up into a cupboard for a pan. His dark top lifted a little, causing my mouth to pop open.

Look away! I screamed at myself.

Tearing my gaze from Acera's flat stomach, I found Dremos smirking more. He had caught my staring. He knew.

I narrowed my eyes, shuffling across the wooden floor to the table where Dremos was also sitting at in a deep oak chair. I pulled mine out, sat, and all the while kept my glower focussed on Dremos's far too amused expression.

  "Where are the others?" Acera asked calmly, facing away from me, perhaps unaware that I'd been gawping, or perhaps not...?

    "Alastria and Sora are having sex somewhere, the new human and my sister, I believe, are enduring foreplay of some sort and Ellos is...writing a poem I think," Dremos answered, brows plucking together.

I blinked a few times. What a weird bunch of people.

Acera sighed. "I don't understand Alastria. Sora isn't loyal to her."

Dremos shrugged. "She does it for the sex, I guess. It's almost impossible to sleep at night," he told me, eyes taunting. "Those two are at it till the early hours."

I fought the temptation to pick up my chair and stab it through Dremos multiple times for giving me that image. "Great. If I didn't already hate it here, I guess I do now."

The two males chuckled.

When Acera finally put the plate of a true English breakfast in front of me, I was a little more at ease with Dremos. He seemed a rather laid back vampire, but for some reason I could sense that he wasn't always so controlled. Behind those brooding eyes, I sensed troubles.

    "You said that I'll be able to see that both kinds can work together. Who is a vampire and who is a human?" I queried, shoving in two slices of bacon, not caring how disgusting I looked as I munched on the mouthful. I was famished.

Dremos and Acera didn't seem to mind, in fact there were tiny smiles playing at their mouths even when I dribbled.

  "Dremos, his sister Katria, and Sora are all vampires. It's just Ellos and Alastria that are human," Acera explained, amber eyes appearing a lot lighter after having told me of his mother's new announcement. What a sick, sick woman. I couldn't wait to drive a stake right through her dead heart.

    "If they're humans, why do they have weird names?" I asked.

  "They're not their real names. Ellos was named Elliot at birth and Alastria was, I think, Anastasia. I believe they chose to change them after joining up with three vampires and a pureblood," Acera told me, smiling wider at my incredulous expression. "Since us vampires have such strange names."

    "You don't say," I agreed. Though, the name Acera had certainly rubbed off on me.

  "About fifty years after Inerra went off the rails," Dremos said, leaning forward in his white shirt and picking a toasted tomato from my plate to toss it into his mouth. Since when could vampires eat human food? "Katria, Sora and I found Acera in a sticky situation. Let's just say he was a depressed vampire; severely depressed. Like, going-to-kill-myself depressed."